10 minutes and 3 miles after leaving my mechanic with a new rear tire and a minor 6K service, I pulled in to a grocery store parking lot. As per my usual custom, I park near the door in the vast concrete apron between the 'road' part of the parking lot and the front door to the store.
Upon departure, I ride down a short path towards the 'road' part of the parking lot, between two landscaped islands. At the last minute, I realize the path ends in a curb instead of a ramp. In the land of ADA wheelchair ramps and grocery carts, curbs at the end of paths are unusual.
I've gone off a few curbs before, so once I judged the coast clear, I gave it a little gas to help it clear the edge and get down on to the 'road', perhaps 4" below. I heard a scrape, but assumed it was my center-stand - something I sometimes hear during spirited riding on undulating roads where the suspension bottoms out and the center stand deploys ever-so-slightly due to the g-forces generated by the dip in the road. Forces not entirely different than jumping off a curb.
About 10 feet and two seconds later, my rear tire feels all squishy, like it's almost completely flat. Since I just got the new rear tire, I think - within a second - crap - something is defective with the new tire/valve stem/installation of the new tire/whatever - I've gotta pull over immediately! I coast in neutral for about a 100 feet to a spot where I can pull out of the lane of traffic, which turns out to be the loading dock for the grocery store. I kill the engine, and put the side stand down.
In the process of looking down to ensure a solid placement of the side stand, I notice a dark liquid quickly pooling under the bike. I hop off and see the growing lake beneath the bike as well as the trail back towards the curb I mistakenly thought I had cleared. The bike soon stops draining oil, and I find a piece of cardboard on the loading dock to put on top of the pool in a pathetic attempt to absorb the however many quarts of brand new synthetic oil.
Of course it's 5:30 on a Friday afternoon. I call the shop - no answer. I use my smart phone to find my mechanic's web page, which I know has his cell number on it. I call that number, and the assistant mechanic who I had seen 15 minutes earlier in the shop answers. I explain my situation, and he says he'll show up with the pick-up truck in a few minutes. In the meantime, I call my wife, who is minutes from walking into her hula-hoop class. She reluctantly agrees to come pick me up instead of attend her class.
When the assistant mechanic arrives, he suggests we go look for the drain plug. We look along the path (well-marked by a trail of oil) and eventually I find it in the gutter. I show it to the wrench, and he observes that it's not a BMW plug. It is an after-market plug that's 3/4" longer than stock. I'd never seen it before, as they've always changed my oil. It has a service nipple on it, so it can be quickly plugged in to systems that purge the oil from the bottom of the engine case. Regardless, it's longer than stock, and thus it sticks down - far and away the lowest thing on the bike next to the center stand.
Further complicating matters, the engine oil drain plug doesn't plug into an oil pan. It plugs directly in to the engine case itself. When the plug ripped out when I went over the curb, the softer brass plug deformed much more than the harder engine case. Unfortunately, the engine case threads did suffer some ugly damage. Approximately 20% of the threads on the forward edge of the drain hole are gone. The remaining threads are either stripped or deformed. I wish I had taken a photo with my cell phone.
The assistant mechanic said he thought it looked like a situation where the existing drain plug hole could be machined out to the point where it would accept the larger K-bike drain plug. He spoke as if he'd done this/seen this before, so I'm hopeful there's a relatively simple fix for the combination of my having an unknown-to-me extra-long drain plug and my bone-headed decision to jump my RTP off of a curb rather than jam on the brakes and back down the path.
The assistant mechanic tells me they'll have an answer for me Tuesday morning, when they re-open. Thankfully, he was able to cart my bike back to the shop for me.
I'll update this thread Tuesday morning when I know what's being proposed by the experts.
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Originally Posted by davejor
